An Arizona couple seeking a divorce hit an unusual snag that could prevent the marriage from legally being dissolved.
A judge is questioning whether a same-sex marriage ban bars him from ending the union — or even recognizing its validity — because the husband was born a woman and underwent a sex change but retained female reproductive organs and gave birth to three children.
Thomas and Nancy Beatie are eager to end their nine-year marriage. But their divorce plans stalled when Maricopa County Family Court Judge Douglas Gerlach said in late June that he was unable to find any legal authority defining a man as someone who can give birth. Gerlach has questioned whether the union was a same-sex marriage.
The judge is expected to issue a decision in early February.
AZgirl55 posted at 4:17 pm on Tue, Jan 1, 2013.
look at the DNA. That isn't altered by lifestyle choice or cosmetic surgery. If the person is female then that person is female. Although I think it is unfair to have laws that restrict same sex marriage, but as we are currently living under those rules and we are a nation of laws, until the laws are changed DNA seems to be the rational means of determining of a persons true sex.